Skip to content

Revealed: how loopholes allowed pro-Brexit campaign to spend ‘as much as necessary to win’

New tranche of Electoral Commission emails show how Vote Leave gave a student £675,000 overnight – and the worrying implications for British democracy.

Published:
Darren Grimes.jpg
Darren Grimes.jpg

Darren Grimes. Image, Channel4, fair use.

Last year a young fashion student from County Durham called Darren Grimes registered a pro-Brexit social media campaign, aimed at persuading young people to vote to quit the EU. It was called BeLeave. At first, not many people noticed.

In its first ten weeks, BeLeave raised the sum total of £107 for its activities. But in the ten days before the Brexit referendum, Darren Grimes spent more than £675,000 on a pro-Brexit social media campaign.